KNITTING fan Barbara Kitchen and her young granddaughter have created 1,000 mini woolly hats – all in the name of charity.

Barbara, 65, from Liversedge, teamed up with her eight-year-old granddaughter Lucy Gray to knit the winter headgear for special edition Innocent Smoothie bottles.

Every year since 2003, Innocent Foods has asked people around the UK to knit woolly hats for Innocent Smoothie bottles.

The bottles are sold in Sainsbury’s stores and for every one sold, 50p is donated to charity.

This year, Age Concern will benefit, with the money going towards schemes to keep elderly people warm in winter.

Innocent Smoothies are hoping for a record amount in 2008 – last year, the scheme raised £200,000.

The bottles will be in Sainsbury’s stores from November 5, sporting a variety of hats. Barbara’s creations include penguins, snowmen and Christmas puddings.

Barbara has never taken part in such a scheme before, although she is well known for her knitting, sewing and craft skills.

She said: “I found out about this through a knitting magazine. I set myself a target of 1,000 hats but I wanted to pace myself, so I did five on a morning and five on a night. I called it my ten a day habit.

“You have from June to October to finish the hats. There are people all over the country like me doing this – they have more than 500,000 hats already. Mine are just a small part of that, but I am really pleased I hit my target.”

She said her grand-daughter’s help was vital in getting the hats finished.

Lucy, who lives at Lockwood, asked if she could help while visiting her grandmother on weekends.

The South Crosland Junior School pupil had the task of sewing the knitted parts of the hats together and fixing the bobbles on top.

Barbara said: “Lucy saw me knitting and asked if she could help. You have to knit quickly and she is just learning, so I did the knitting and she did the inspection and sewing up. We had a little production line. I hope she might do more knitting in the future.”

Innocent Foods was founded in 1999 by former Kirkburton man Richard Reed and his two university friends.

Barbara said she was impressed by the company’s efforts to create health products and help older people with schemes like the bobble hat idea.

She said: “They seem to do a lot to try and help good causes. I think they will sell well. They usually have them on shelves for a couple of weeks. I know people who buy them as little gifts for friends and some even keep the hats to put on their Christmas trees.”